Open Education Leadership Summit Achieve More through Collaboration OELS 2018: 3.-4. December, CNAM, Paris, France PANELS PROCEEDINGS Eric Bruillard & Perrine de Coëtlogon Université Paris Descartes, laboratoire EDA / Université de Lille Mipnes Experts (MESRI)
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Open Education Leadership Summit
Achieve More through Collaboration
OELS 2018: 3.-4. December, CNAM, Paris, France
PANELS PROCEEDINGS Eric Bruillard & Perrine de Coëtlogon
Université Paris Descartes, laboratoire EDA / Université de Lille
Mipnes Experts (MESRI)
2
Bruillard, Éric & de Coëtlogon, Perrine (2019). Panels Proceedings of Open Education Leadership
Summit. Paris Descartes University, 44 p.
3
Open Education Leadership Summit
Achieve More Through Collaboration
Introduction
The Open Education Leadership Summit1 has been organized by the International Council for Open and
Distance Education (ICDE), Open Education Consortium (OEC), the Ministry of Higher Education,
Research and Innovation (MESRI), and the Ministry of National Education and Youth (MENJ) of France.
It has been hosted by MESRI and by the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers (CNAM), 3-4 December 2018.
According to their own presentation, the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE)2
is the leading global membership organization for open, distance, flexible and online education,
including e-learning, and draws its membership from institutions, educational authorities, commercial
actors, and individuals. Open Education Consortium (OEC)3 is a global network of educational
institutions, individuals and organizations that support an approach to education based on openness,
including collaboration, innovation and collective development and use of open educational materials.
The two French Ministries of Education were involved in the organization of this event, which brought
together more than 170 participants from 55 countries.
Panels and roadmap creation
The Open Education Leadership Summit was organized around two parallel concurrent strands of
activities - 1. thematic keynotes and 2. roadmap creation. This second strand has engaged participants
in hands-on development of a roadmap representing their own open education initiative.
Then, regional roadmaps, including the contributions from individual roadmaps, have been designed.
The analysis of roadmaps identified common themes, challenges, and opportunities: MOOCs – Peace
and Conflict Resolution; Nursing OER; Open Recognition & Badging; Sustainable Development Goals
(SDG’s); Open Education Practices & Pedagogy; Use of OER in Rural Locations & Global South; Open
Education Implementation & Culture Change; Research on Open Education; Open Education Policy &
Advocacy; Open Assessments; OER Coaching; Moodle.net; Multilingual OER and OER for Language
Acquisition.
More information in the OEC website: https://www.oeconsortium.org/2019/01/oels2018/
In parallel with the design of the roadmaps, Eric Bruillard and Perrine de Coëtlogon set up a programme
of interventions in the form of panels. The aim was to take stock of the issues of openness around
education, but also more broadly on openness in science and governance, to give a voice to
international institutions such as UNESCO and OIF, to report on ongoing actions in Open Education,
particularly around OERs, to reflect on links with the Commons, following the work of Elinor Ostrom.
This resulted in a series of thematic keynotes and discussions:
Alain Beretz, University of Strasbourg, past General Director for Research and Innovation, French Ministry for Higher Education and Research
The French government has announced in July 2018 the launch of an ambitious Open Science Plan5.
There are three reasons that caused this decision. The first one is the important change in paradigm in
science, which is now opening up for society as a whole. The second reason is the risk that France
might miss the ongoing global shift towards open science. And finally, the fact that the actual closed
practices that still hold sway induce inadequate exploitation of our scientific potential.
Indeed, the situation of spreading the results of science is reoccupying: you have to pay exaggerated
and unjustified fees to have access to researchers' publications sponsored by public resources. While
fake news are very easily accessible, scientific publications are protected behind paywalls that act as
barriers preventing access to knowledge. Of course, this is not an obstacle for the richest universities
in the world and for the large industrial groups. But it severely limits the potential impact of our
research on campuses around the world, on society, on economy.
The French plan for Open follows a comprehensive approach and does not just deal with the open
publications issue. We sustain that open science should seek to create an ecosystem in which scientific
research is more cumulative, better supported by data and more transparent with faster and more
universal access to results.
The plan builds on key principles and commitments6. The principles are:
Knowledge that is kept locked up is sterile knowledge
Open science is not a fashion, it is not a discipline, it is a paradigm.
It thus involves new practices and new skills.
Three main commitments form the plan’s backbone:
1. generalize open access to publications 2. structure research data and make it available through open access 3. be part of sustainable European and international open science dynamics
The first commitment is to generalize open access to publications. The principle underlying this action
is that we need more bibliodiversity, i.e. we should move towards greater diversity and balance in the
editorial landscape. Three sets of actions will be launched:
1. Make open access mandatory when publishing articles and books resulting from government-funded calls for projects. The French national research fund (ANR) has already made this mandatory for the research it sponsors.
2. Create an Open Science fund. This will contribute to the development of innovative French and international solutions, both from a technical and economic point of view. For example, it will enable to explore the development of participatory funding models involving all the world's libraries. France will thus help the scientific community regain control of publishing.
3. Support the HAL national open repository and simplify the publication filing procedures for researchers who publish through open access platforms around the world. HAL allows articles
5 http://cache.media.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/file/Recherche/50/1/SO_A4_2018_EN_01_leger_982501.pdf 6 See Amsterdam Call for Action on Open Science and Jussieu Call for Open science and bibliodiversity.
which have been published in closed journals to be deposited for open access. It also guarantees long-term conservation of national publications and is an open archive.
The second commitment aims to structure research data and make it available through open access.
Data can serve as an educational tool, a scientific substrate and a catalyst for innovation. We should
not lose our rights on our data as we have lost our rights on our journals. The objective of the plan is
to structure and preserve the data, prior to making them freely available, following the principle “As
open as possible…as closed as necessary”. This commitment is based on three main actions:
4. Make open access dissemination mandatory for research data resulting from government-funded projects.
5. Create the post of Chief Data Officer and the corresponding network within the relevant institutions.
6. Create the conditions for and promote the adoption of an Open Data policy for articles published by researchers.
The third commitment will aim at being part of sustainable European and international open science
dynamics. If we seek to make France an open science country, this means transforming scientific
practices so that they integrate and adopt open science on a routine basis, as well as contributing to
the structuring of the international open science landscape. This transformation has to take into
account the wide range disciplinary specificities and constraints. This last commitment is also based
on three main actions:
7. Develop open science skills, especially in postgraduate schools. Open science is not a fashion, it is not a discipline, it is a paradigm. It thus involves new practices and new skills. That should be part of the initial background skills of young researchers. Open science will not be the business of a small group of specialists; it will have to permeate the entire research world.
8. Encourage universities and research performing organizations to adopt open science policies. 9. Actively contribute to structuring European data in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and
by participating in GO FAIR.
This open science plan is not an isolated initiative but it resonates with other “open” initiatives, such
as the Paris OER (open education resources) declaration in 20127, which defined OER as “teaching,
learning and research materials (…) that (…) have been released under an open license that permits
no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.”
Another example is the Open Government Partnership, which “…brings together government
reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive,
responsive and accountable.” France has included several commitments on Open Science in its own
Open government plan8.
Finally, it should be stressed that such an ambitious plan requires an underlying backbone of
regulations and infrastructures. This is very important order to transform these political commitments
into concrete actions visible in the field. We can cite two of these.
First the “law for a digital republic”9 published in October 2016, includes regulations for publications,
with a new right for authors10. Article 30 states that when a research is 50% publicly funded, the author
retain the right to publish in open repositories 6 (STM) to 12 months (HSS) after publication. This law
Papa-Youga Dieng, IFADEM, International Organisation of Francophonie (OIF) (Senegal) Coordonnateur de l’initiative francophone pour la formation à Distance des Maîtres (IFADEM)
Institut de la Francophonie pour l’éducation et la Formation (IFEF) Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)
Since 2002, Open Educational Resources (OER) have occupied an increasing place on the international
educational scene. Their transformative potential, ease of access and the values they convey make
them a central challenge for achieving the fourth sustainable development objective of "ensuring
access for all to quality education on an equal footing and promoting lifelong learning opportunities".
The International Organization of la Francophonie (OIF) has decided to take full advantage of this
challenge and to act in a resolutely committed way to promote open, free and accessible education
for all.
Since 2013, the OIF has set up a series of international expert workshops (Moncton - 2013, Tunis -
2015, Paris - 2016) to develop and refine an action plan for the Francophonie on OER. Thus, the
implementation of the action plan has had the following results:
- the creation of the open and massive online course "OER 2014 - For a free education", - the development of the OER Competency Framework and the trainer's guide on OER; - the development of the IDNEUF meta-portal - developed with the Agence universitaire de la
Francophonie (AUF), designed to manage educational resources and promote the digital heritage freely accessible in French;
- the production of a significant number of OER for students and teachers, including some sixty self-study booklets for teachers in schools in some fifteen member countries of La Francophonie.
More generally, through the Institut de la Francophonie pour l'éducation et la formation, the
Francophonie's digital strategy (Direction de la Francophonie numérique) and the use of OER, the OIF
aims to contribute to increasing equity, relevance and access to quality education for all. The
development and integration of tools and OER in teacher education, curricula and pedagogical
resources all contribute to these objectives.
To increase Francophone capacity in OER, OIF has established a broad partnership framework with key
actors such as the ministries of education of OIF member countries, UNESCO, the Open Education
Consortium, the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), the University
of Moncton, the African Virtual University and the Tunis Virtual University.
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Policies on OER
Mona Laroussi, IFEF, International Organisation of Francophonie (OIF)
Introduction
Lažetić et al. (2015)12 classify openness in education in four categories: Content, Infrastructure, Culture
and Process. We often limit openness to content taking into account data, research literature,
resources and software.
A more global vision introduced by an open culture would allow a more democratic practice and
especially a more beneficial and anchored use and would allow us to introduce the notion of policies
in the different categories.
In JRC technical reports “policy approaches to open education”13, four types of policies are introduced:
Policies focusing specifically on opening up education through the promotion of open educational
resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP); Policies relating to general ICT (Information and
Communication Technologies) for learning with some open education component; Comprehensive
strategic educational policies with some open education component; Polices designed as National
Open Government Plans with some open education component.
Open education is an important part of how educational institutions deliver their mission and increase
quality. Open education needs support from policies, via a multi-stakeholder approach, that can act
systemically to further advance open education.
We present in this paper the policies in OER in French-speaking countries. Work is not exhaustive but
just a beginning of classification to identify the different actors.
Open Education
Open education can be defined14 as mode of realising education, often enabled by digital technologies,
aiming to widen access and participation to everyone by removing barriers and making learning
accessible, abundant, and customisable for all. It offers multiple ways of teaching and learning, building
and sharing knowledge, as well as a variety of access routes to formal and non-formal education,
bridging them.
Basically, openness in education needs to be reflected on a macro, meso and micro level, coupled with
that strategic policy-making needs to consider inclusive programme designs and funding mechanisms.
Furthermore, there is a clear need for more collaboration and mutual learning in order to capitalize
and exchange.
At a macro level, we can find Policies and Curricula Open Education and Learning Quality coupled with
the Need for Changing Strategies and Learning Experiences. At the meso level: Organisation and
Design. At the micro level: Learner and resources. Our work is situated at the micro level. We treat
policies in OER.
12 Lažetić, P., Souto-Otero, M., Shields, R., Muñoz, J. C., & Punie, Y. (2015). OpenCases: A Catalogue of Mini Cases on Open Education in Europe. 13 http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC107713/jrc107713_jrc107713_policy_approaches_to_open_education.pdf 14 JRC IPTS Report: Opening up Education: a support framework for higher education institutions (2016) http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC101436/jrc101436.pdf
Definition The term OER was proposed in 2002 during the UNESCO Forum, which was defined as “the open
provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for
consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes.
OER policies are generally those that support the assembly, use and reuse of OER in an institution or
within a jurisdiction.
The Creative Commons has established an OER policy registry that, as of November 2015, included
more than 70 policies. Commonwealth of learning15 adopted an OER policy in 2011, while UNESCO
adopted an open access policy in 201316.
Types of policy Policies can be categorized into 3 types.
• Policies linking OER to open access for research and for education • Policies facilitating quality access, reducing costs but also others such as development and
informed citizenry • Policies reducing or dismantling the barriers to creation of innovative institutions and innovative
practice (including OER, MOOCs and open educational practice)
Categories Four categories of OER policies have been identified: Policies for OE Development, Policies for Open
Standards (government’s open access and licensing methods), Specific Policies for Constructing OER
(encourage the construction of OER with financial resources), OE Policies Imbedded in Other Education
Strategic Plans (promoting educational equity and quality by using information technology)
OER in French-Speaking African Countries
Context The context is very different when comparing countries located in the south and the north.
The situation in the northern countries is punctuated by the presence of clear strategies and policies
letting the creation, adoption, and sharing OER and the design and integration of OEP into programs
of study. Such policies identify open licensing standards, technical formats, and accessibility for OER,
and they articulate appropriate and permitted uses of funds in support of OER and OEP. They promote
good stewardship of those resources by sharing in public repositories. For example, foundations,
governments, and other public entities often have open licensing policies to ensure the resources they
fund or procure are OER and are shared broadly. Policies at colleges and universities support the
academic use of OER and OEP. Policies by international non-governmental organizations often seek to
frame broad standards and articulate accepted practices for OER and OEP and to promote their
adoption.
In the southern French-speaking countries, the OER are dependent on personal initiatives and political
decisions. We can mention associations17 such as associations created by the University of Cadi Ayed
in Morroco, Virtual Tunisian University. Those associations try to influence behaviours and practices,
to increase awareness of open education and intellectual property rights (IPR). We also find resources
from people’s specialists in the field. They coach and supervise a group of young teachers and
researchers. This interesting expertise remains precarious in the sense that it depends heavily on the
person. We also find many projects financed by foreign operators in order to promote the use of OER.
These projects made possible to set up repositories of free indexed educational resources. Projects,
foundations, associations are developing and implementing their own open policies and they can
continue to refine, test and nuance open education policies.
Policy changes needed to make more effective use of OER? OER policies should be integrated into global strategy of OE including policies and guidelines; funder
mandates; and declarations from influential bodies such as UNESCO. Making access to high-quality
education more equitable and affordable and express a concerted commitment to use OER and OEP
for these purposes.
It is important to integrate public and non-public funding models in order to reduce education costs
and maximize public investment returns. This suggests that the international OER partnerships will be
the norm in the future and new models of funding will be required to support this trend which will
need to be based on collaboration.
The objective of policies shouldn’t be just to produce OER but also to produce guidelines explaining
access and use; that is what it was noticed in the various observations made, that teachers use the
resources put at their disposal only if they are supervised. Teachers have difficulties in integrating a
resource with their training support; we noticed that usually teachers take all the resources or nothing.
Conclusion
In order to encourage the implementation of OER policies in emergent countries, copyright policies for
education need to be flexible enough to allow educators and/or institutions to retain all rights reserved
copyright for resources that have this potential commercial value.
So we have to encourage:
a) the development of diversified learning resources (mother tongue or LUL); b) policies that require publicly funded educational resources, being openly licensed; c) incentives for teaching staff to publish editable, accessible OER digital files in public repositories.
Connected Learning as a driver of change
Alex Grech, Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning (Malta)
Connected learning is a transversal policy for changes that need to be activated not just within the
Maltese education system, but in developing countries where technology may be used as an enabler
of much-needed change in education frameworks.
In a seminal report, Ito et al. (2013) define connected learning as an approach to education that is
“socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or political
opportunity”. Connected learning is typically realised when a young person is able to pursue a personal
interest or passion with the support of friends and caring adults and is in turn able to link this learning
and interest to academic achievement, career success or civic engagement. This model is based on
evidence that the most resilient, adaptive, and effective learning involves individual interest as well as
social support to overcome adversity and provide recognition. Built on the three core values of social
equity, full participation and social connection, connected learning advocates for broadened access to
learning that is socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic or
political opportunity.
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Faced with the current stasis about OER, policy-makers need to become pragmatic. It is within this
context – an increasing awareness of how education systems fail learners whose real lives outside the
learning environment bear little resemblance to what is being served as ‘curriculum’ or ‘training
materials’ - that connected learning becomes a compelling proposition. Although its principles have
been part of the education vernacular before the advent of the Internet, in 2019 connected learning
is closely associated with the development and exchange of knowledge and ideas among students and
educators through the use of information technology that enables learning that is not bound by
geographical limitations. The emergence and mass uptake of online social networks revived interest in
connected learning as a learner-centric framework (see Benkler (2006, 2011); Rheingold 2012). Social
media, digital games and digital production tools are used by lone educators to push against the
boundaries of one-size-fits-all curricula in the belief that the most resilient, adaptive, and effective
learning involves individual interest combined with social support. This is inclusive yet very
personalised learning by praxis, overcoming adversity and providing recognition for skills gained via
alternative routes. For educators adopting connected learning principles, the various experiences,
interests and contexts in which learners participate―in and out of school―are potential learning
opportunities that may also lead to academic achievement, career success or civic engagement.
The use of online social networks also activates communities that are not necessarily geographic:
young people use social media to connect with others who share similar interests and co-learn; older
learners can lever on online peer-learning networks to pursue niche interests in the information age
where in principle, social connections are abundant; academics can actively start to pursue
opportunities for curriculum re-design.
Connected learning draws on technology to activate people’s interests, friendships, relationships and
academic achievement through experiences grounded in hands-on production, shared purpose and
open networks. It represents a framework for understanding and supporting learning, as well as a
theory of intervention that grows out of our analysis of today’s changing social, economic,
technological and cultural context. Connected learning experiences are also increasingly associated
with 21st Century skills and ‘deeper learning’ demanded by the labour market. Framed against this
ideal context is the embedded 20th century model of teaching and learning in classrooms that still
have young people in assembly lines.
We need to shift the discourse on technology in education, from policy and investment in ICT
infrastructure and copyright to praxis. Education systems should contribute to the development of
21st century skills, including digital literacy, and increasingly data literacy. Yet algorithms in education
tend to be designed by people with strong data and technical skills but a narrow perspective of equity
and social inclusion. The bias that exists within such systems needs to become explicit, particularly if
we want to address inequities and integrate social learning and eliminate bias towards learners who
are disenfranchised, such as refugees or people in poverty.
There is a need to address the issue of universal accreditation of learning, irrespective of the medium
used for teaching and learning. Technology can be used for individual learning profiling, paving the
way for radical changes to curricula. It is more than timely to investigate those attributes of education
systems that are no longer aligned with the affordances of technology and analytics.
The Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning (3CL)
see www.connectedlearning.edu.mt
The Centre was set up in 2017. Based in Malta, it operates as a virtual knowledge hub for a global
network of groups, agencies, institutions and activists interested in the rapid deployment of pilots for
connected learning. It connects stakeholders in the Commonwealth with EU countries on projects and
opportunities of mutual interest.
The Centre has four intervention areas:
1. Learning content and approaches 2. Teachers, educators and school leaders 3. Democratic learning culture 4. Cooperation, partnerships and synergies.
The Centre follows four strategic objectives:
1. Increase quality and relevance of digital learning 2. Increase impact of educators 3. Address inequalities and social integration in society through accessible and cost-effective
education 4. Support and disseminate applied research and best practices in tech-enabled and
connected learning
The Objectives are underpinned by three Strategies (Action Research, Praxis, Advocacy) and in turn by
five Strategic Programmes.
Programme 1: Blockchain in Education Programme 2: Small States & Technology Programme 3: Conferences & Training Programme 4: Open Education Programme 5: Digital & Media Literacies
The Strategic Plan 2019-2021 is being published in March 2019.
References
Benkler Yochai (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, New
Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 515 p.
Benkler Yochai (2011). The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest, Crown
Blockchain & Education, some keywords, their link to education
and the initiative to develop a sovereign and sustainable Blockchain
compliant with our education values focusing on two innovations
Perrine de Coëtlogon, Project Manager Blockchain & Education, University of Lille (France)
Some key words and concepts in the blockchain technology
Most experts of the blockchain use a specific vocabulary that is difficult for most people to understand,
including distributed system (peer-to-peer, disintermediation), certification (or the common law
notarization’s system, which is more about issuing certified copies), ledgers, proof of work, token,
governance…
Each of these words reflects some key concepts of human inventions.
For example: one of the major human inventions is writing. And writing was invented 5000 years ago
in order to record legal transactions. Ledgers and trusted third parties (authorized writers) were
created -and still exist- to ensure legal certainty and avoid litigation. So too does the blockchain: each
connected server possesses a copy of an immutable and secure ledger of legal transactions
(distribution). Blockchain was conceived as an open source technology to ensure anyone could read
the proof of transactions (transparency) in these records. This is still the case: almost every blockchain
is open source.
Another example with the invention of currencies. The rise of human exchanges was -and still is- based
on trust. Bitcoin was invented as an alternative currency following the financial crisis of 2008 that
betrayed this trust, in order to propose a currency based on peer-to-peer decisions.
In blockchain technology, connected servers are in competition to resolve a complex mathematical
problem (they are “mining”). The system is able to decide which server was successful and therefore,
to certify the webpage (the block) containing a certain amount of transactions and to bind it to the
previous page. The blockchain technology rewards this server with tokens for its successful
contribution to a collaborative work (proof of work). No human intervention is required. This is a major
informatics innovation.
The two major problems with blockchain technology identified by many experts are the questions of
sustainability, identity in connecting and using the technology and the faculty to allow citizen to erase
the personal data they do not wish to appear in the ledger. However, many researchers and companies
are working already on addressing these questions.
Application of these principles in Education
In Education, these attractive and complex concepts have led to the identification of blockchain
technology as an interesting solution to a few problems with regards to:
- distributed and open ledgers: retain shared records of all learning outcomes (diplomas, competences, diploma supplement, open badges…), in initial or lifelong learning, on a lifelong basis. Any world citizen having studied at some point in Europe would be able to find a certified copy of his or her diploma at any stage of his or her life.
- disintermediation: empower teachers to recognize and award their students directly with something else than the diploma (disintermediation): credentials or open badges. Whereas credentials can be seen as higher education credits that, put together, will constitute a diploma, open badges can be considered as a more flexible way to recognize any skills and competences, even acquired outside formal institutions.
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- identity, open licences and reward of contributions in Open Educational Resources: ensure the traceability of remixed open educational resources and reward the contributors thanks to the issuing of “credits” that could be used as proof of work for their carrier path.
The “Netflix” of Open Educational Resources (OER)?
The last use case has led the author of this article to conceive of a blockchain capable of certifying the
intellectual property rights of teachers and researchers (and even students) bound to their
professional identity. The idea is to create a global platform comparable to a “Netflix” dedicated to
Open Educational Resources and subject to open licenses.
It could be tested on the 30 000 French OER that are documented, available, and that may be found
through a single search engine.
It would of course be free for anyone to use, with the possibility of payment for commercial uses, in
order to explore a sustainable model for OER.
In a sense, it would mimic a plagiarism software, tracking the legal use and reuse of OER.
It would also allow visualizing a “family tree” of the uses and modifications of a resource, growing with
the years.
Finally, application of blockchain technology would recognize and reward contributions to the OER
movement. A sort of Open Badge / digital credit identifying the contributor and their contributions,
easily embedded showable in curricula, serving as official proof in support of career paths.
The European Blockchain Observatory-Forum and initiative for Education
The blockchain use case identified by most governments and institutions in Education aims to create
the distributed ledgers of diploma and competences.
27 State members of the European Union and Norway have set up a partnership on blockchain. This
partnership has also identified the use case on certification of diplomas as an innovative public service
to citizens. 2019 will should be the year to set up a global project in this regard.
In 2017, the French Ministry for Education and Youth set up a working group on Blockchain & Education
at national level, based at the University of Lille. One of the objectives of this working group is to help
test the sovereign and sustainable Blockchain developed within the IT system department of the
European Commission.
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27
Panel 4
The Commons of Education.
General, legal, norms and role of teachers' associations
Introduction to the panel
Georges-Louis Baron, Paris Descartes University (France)
Open education is like a young tree with many roots, some of them in progressive education, some in
the commons movement, some in the historical and cultural specificities of each country where it
grows. Its development is mainly influenced by policies setting laws, rules and norms and by the
involvement of different institutions, aiming to implement those policies. But it also has a very
important dimension, linked to the involvement of actors within communities, informal online
networks and associations, promoting generous ideas, defending values and patrimonies and
producing resources, which are now mainly online. Among these actors, teachers play a key role.
Regarding open education, it is therefore very important to study communities of teachers, the context
in which they develop, what they produce, their economic models, the way they do adopt and modify
rules that allow them to move on and to convince other people.
For this purpose, research fortunately offers powerful theoretical models. Prominent among them is
what has produced Elinor Ostrom and her school about the management of common resources. It
occupies a privileged place because it provides a useful framework for understanding how agents may
create sustainable communities with a limited intervention of external institutions.
These models are based on the study of communities producing and maintaining tangible resources
(irrigation systems, fisheries…). But they are also well adapted to communities that produce, transform
and disseminate online resources and may offer convincing examples of efficient organization.
The focus of this round table has precisely been on the links, in the field of open education, between
the global context of norms and practitioners’ commons. What are the available legal solutions, the
tensions, and synergies, how main actors organize themselves?
Some of the ideas that were expressed at the round table are rooted in the experience of a country
where teachers have relatively wide margins of action, even if they have to respect strong norms:
France. Still, the examples given and the reflection produced are of a general value.
The dynamics of Commons in Open education
Danièle Bourcier, Director of Research CERSA, Paris University (France) Sophie Touzé, VetAgro Sup/University Lyon, Open Education Consortium President
Universal access to education is the best way to contribute to individual, social and economic
development, and cultural exchange. With the emergence of digital technology and the Internet, Open
Education refers to publicly accessible and shareable materials and resources for any user wanting to
improve one’s knowledge. Resources (OER) includes teaching, learning or research materials that are
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in the public domain or released with intellectual property licenses that facilitate the free use,
adaptation and distribution of resources.
The UNESCO Education Sector focuses on monitoring and analyzing global progress in adopting OER as
well as supporting the development of national OER policies.
The principles of UNESCO have been enriched in 2015: Education has become a global “public good”31
or rather a “common good”. Many researchers and educators were convinced that the world of
education has changed firstly under the pressure of market (privatization of educational institutions).
Secondly, for financial reasons, states often diminished the quality of public service of teaching.
Why Open Commons in education?
A Common is not only defined by its nature (water, lands, …) but also by its function in the community
(Lessig, op.cit.). Several factors may justify the creation of common. Firstly, common goods imply
certain values that would vanish if these goods were privatized. Secondly, some resources may be
more efficiently used if they are held in common goods. Copying the defaults of both the market and
States, many actors of education willingly gathered contents, which fed common pool resources and
organized themselves through common governance. MIT (OpenCourseWare, OCW) was the first
academic initiative sharing a lot of resources and courses on line. This pool is accessed by a broadly
international population of educators and learners and receives millions of visits each year. These visits
come from all over the world, with over half coming from outside of North America. In France FUN
(France Université Numérique) launched in 2013 aims to promote the acquisition of digital skills, with
the possibility of developing them, thanks to an independent certification, recognized by the public
administrations and the business world.
Two organizations have been notably involved in this process of commoning through open and free
licenses: Commonwealth of Learning and Creative Commons. Creative Commons oversees a system of
common rights that provide creators and licensors a simple method of indicating what freedoms they
would like to pertain to their creative work.
But what does it mean “commons” in the field of open education and research? How have societies
developed diverse institutional arrangements for sharing resources?
The Commons is a general term for shared resources in which each stakeholder has an equal interest.
The new book “Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science”,
edited by Rajiv Jhangiani and Robert Biswas-Diener, features the work of open advocates around the
world.
Many Commons have been developed in agriculture, or fishery. Let us take the example of the Water
Court of Valence (Spain) that created irrigation Commons because of the loss of water. A common
institution was responsible for settling disputes over irrigation among peasants. Nowadays, at noon,
every Thursday, while the bells of the Miguelete Tower rang, the Tribunal formally met before the
Door of the Apostles.
Building scientific commons took more time. The circulation of scientific knowledge has followed
several steps. The first step (until 1980) was characterized by the birth of academies. Raw data were
out of intellectual property. And Common law did not recognize moral rights. The second step fostered
the market of scientific publishing: it was the time of “publish or perish” for the researchers. Internet
then burst, and sharing was the golden rule (Open source). Arxiv.org was the first common depository
31 For economists, strictly speaking, a public good is characterized by non-rivalry and non-excludability.
Suber P. (2012). Open Access, MIT Press, coll. “MIT Press Essential Knowledge”.
Uhlir P. (2009). Global change in Environmental Data Sharing, Implementation of the GEOSS Data sharing
Principles, Communia Workshop Proceedings, Torino.
Weinstein O. (2013). Comment comprendre les « communs » : Elinor Ostrom, la propriété et la nouvelle
économie institutionnelle, Revue de la régulation, http://journals.openedition.org/regulation/10452
DOI : 10.4000/regulation.10452
Commons and Collectives of teachers
Éric Bruillard, Paris Descartes University (France)
Educational resources: understanding personal and collective work of teachers
In France, we have been conducting research for several years on how teachers, individually and
collectively, work on educational resources; in particular, within the ReVEA project, which focuses on
so-called living resources for teaching and learning. The educational resources are alive thanks to the
communities of teachers who support them.
Educational resources: commons managed by teachers’ collectives
In this part, the idea is to highlight different issues to attest that contemporary education requires a
collective management of educational resources by teachers.
Key importance of educational resources - For instrumental reasons: the transition from paper to digital, with a lot of different
hybridizations, spreading infrastructure and explosion of individual use of digital objects - For social reasons: new subjects to be learned, new knowledge and a pressure towards more
interactivity in teaching and learning activities; towards a postmodern school, which implies multiple views, multiple voices, more than one source of knowledge; and Google, social networks, smartphones… new relationship with knowledge
The situation is not uniform and if we are rather in a context of abundant educational resources in
developed countries, there are still many cases of scarcity.
This situation (abundancy) leads to an Increasing responsibility of teachers concerning educational
resources: less external authority guarantee, less or no validation, new legitimization (notably by
peers); also an increasing duration of preparation partly due to new pressure from students and parent
expecting visible quality of documents (presentation and readability), up to date data…
Access (open) not sufficient to insure equity This is a very well-known and stable result: great benefice for those well-equipped, with self-
directness… It is confirmed in recent studies about MOOCs
MOOC “despite their basis in democratic values and principles, there are still many inequalities
in access and outcomes in both compulsory academic and vocational education” Éléonore
Vrillon PHD Thesis (Sept., 2018)
“Due to poor collective self-regulation, and due to the lack of pedagogical guidance and legal
framework, there is a high risk that only the most self-regulated individuals benefit from such
opportunities.” Jean Condé PHD Thesis (Dec., 2018)
These observations lead to some key issues concerning training (e.g. Moocs): who has access / who
succeeds / who benefits from the use?
Teachers, resources and environment allowing capabilities development The main role of teachers is to respect national programs (prescribed curricula), select educational
resources and adapt them finely to the group they have to manage in order to design pedagogical
situations for their students. Educational resources at the heart of teaching profession.
Research shows the great diversity of the relationships between teachers and their resources, often
very or even strictly personal. They are constantly on the lookout (continuous monitoring process) and
have control over resources is necessary for them to take ownership of them. Focussing on the
opposition paper / digital is not productive, as we observe continuity of practices and hybridation.
Many stakeholders focus on skills, in an individual vision, but the working environment plays a central
role and research around capabilities (Sen) or emancipating environments is to be taken into account.
State and Market: complex interaction and a world cult of innovation The landscape of educational resource production has evolved, with traditional school publishers and
edTech start-ups. A recent report on the French situation (Levoin, 2018)32 shows slow developments,
with many digital products but not very well adapted to the school culture
We face a sort of innovation trap: we do not cultivate the "common", we constantly import new
products, opposed to practices considered commonplace not seen externally as innovative, but
essential in daily work. How to design the adapted glasses to be able to perceive the innovation in
commonplace activities?
Being aware of new enclosures New web platforms, including services, managing resources Instead of teachers, ready-made resources
preventing for any appropriation process, neurosciences and artificial intelligence, misunderstood or
misused, may reinforce teacher exclusion: offering data processing leading to decisions by experts or
by machines reducing the decision-making power of teachers, reducing teachers’ agentivity.
There is a risk of teachers' downgrading or proletarization. Examples in US show teachers having to
counterbalance the deleterious effects of programs that they do not understand. For example:
32 Levoin X. (2018). Mutations dans le paysage des ressources numériques à la lumière des BRNE. Synthèse de l'enquête BRNE 2018. Rapport à la DNE. Université Paris Descartes, 20 p.
32
Worried about students' social detachment in tech-based learning, some schools are trying to
weave social-emotional support into lessons. Sarah D. Sparks, Education Week, Nov. 6, 201833
Importance of teachers’ collectives A lot of teachers networks, communities, collectives (unions), producing, discussing, exchanging
resources, exist in a lot of countries, using websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter… There several well-
known effects of teachers’ collective work: professional development, innovation (inventing new
pedagogical situations), legitimation by peers.
The question of the quality of educational resources is often raised. Quality is linked to a development
process, a quality approach, compliance with standards leading to final production. It is also a by-
product of collective management, constant adaptation to different audience, a process linked to
teachers’ collective work.
Tensions around resources
A central issue is the control of educational resources. Is it the responsibility of the teacher or an
organization beyond his or her responsibility (control of (by) resources)?
First of all, there is a tension between pedagogical freedom, which is granted to the teacher,
particularly in France, and the necessary infrastructures to be installed, which cannot be chosen by
each teacher (for example, particular platforms, shared work spaces, etc.).
A temptation that is spreading more and more is to reduce teaching to simple techniques, using a
medical or pharmaceutical metaphor. All you have to do is find the best methods and apply them. The
teacher is no longer a professional who follows a group of students but a kind of nurse who takes care
of students according to prescriptions imposed on him. To conclude, the way in which educational
resource management is viewed underlies a vision of education and of the role of the teaching
Open Education and UN SDGs: Artificial Intelligence contributions
Mitja Jermol, UNESCO Chair on Open Technologies for Open Educational Resources and Open Education, Director, Center for Knowledge Transfer at the Jozef Stefan Institute (Slovenia)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are getting more and more attention due to a series of
successful applications ranging from intelligent environments, intelligent networks, smart cities,
autonomous systems to humanoid robotics and self-aware and cognitive systems. Although AI is a set
of algorithms, its impact and potential consequences globally are seen to be crucial for humanity. To
date many AI applications have been successfully implemented in various areas but only few are
supporting learning and education.
AI technologies are a set of algorithms that either dealing with data (data intensive AI) or with
knowledge (knowledge intensive AI). The first category of algorithms deals with content processing,
user modelling, social networks, language technologies and knowledge extraction and formalization.
The second category is mainly focused on higher level cognitive abilities like reasoning, explaining and
semantically rich interactions. These technologies are supporting intelligent (AI) tutors, automatic
assessment and further quality and didactical processing of materials.
The discussion at the Panel attempted to present holistically how AI can help transform the current
learning and teaching practices. In general, three important sets of problems with solutions that can
be provided by using AI have been discussed as outlined below:
of access to these resources is more and more present everywhere. With the right technologies
everyone should be able to benefit from much better learning opportunities.
A number of global actors are addressing these issues today, whether they come from Academia or
Industry. The impact of these technologies has been discussed in recent forums, for example, in
September 2017 in Ljubljana34 or in October 2018 in Nantes35.
During this panel my colleagues Zenep Varoglu and Mitja Jermol presented some ongoing work,
showing how technology training was an important task for UNESCO and how current projects, like X5-
GON36, are aiming at allowing a simplified access to educational resources.
Although I advocate strongly in favour of the introduction of technologies for education, and
specifically of Artificial Intelligence (AI), for Education, I want to examine some possible obstacles
which we should care about.
The first one is that the development of new AI-inspired technologies should be global. These should
not be prepared and matured in northern hemisphere labs (possibly even only in those having access
to the right quantities of data and traffic). Most researchers are aware of this and important efforts
are already taking place in order to build more inclusive solutions. More and more innovations are
taking place in the global south and it is interesting to notice that an increasing amount of research
and technology events taking place in Africa, for instance. We should all work hard on this. There are
opportunities as many of the available technologies are open-source and can therefore not just be
deployed but also be modified anywhere.
The second one is that opening up education cannot take place without opening up many other things:
data, software, traffic, research, access, government. This is not just a rhetorical position: it is hugely
practical. You can build great open educational resources, but if the system on which you intend to
have them is closed, these will remain invisible. Privacy concerns are of course important. Education
data is sensitive. But one should be careful in not using the privacy argument in order to somehow
confiscate the data. There is a possible compromise to be found: sharing data will allow to build better
applications and more importantly to have more people and teams able to build these. If the data is
withheld to ensure privacy, the result may be disastrous.
A third issue is that of building economical solutions. Too often, when technology is deployed for
education, the results won’t follow because the new tools will require an important investment by the
teachers and/or learners. Because of the nature of the topic everyone feels that this effort is both
unavoidable and well take place. When this is not the case (most often) we are then disappointed by
the result.
The fourth issue is to bring in the teachers. We have been running program Class’Code37 in France since
2015. Class’Code has the goal of contributing to the training of the teachers and educators which are
to teach code and computational thinking in the schools. Class’Code was awarded in 2017 the
Informatics Europe Best practice in Education award in 2017. It is built upon MOOCs and a web
platform allowing the construction of a hybrid social network. In a reasonably favourable environment
(France) the program which is built on open technologies and resources is currently contributing both
34 Conference on Artificial Intelligence: Research, Technology and Business in Open Educational Resources (OER). Ljubljana, 19 &20/10/2017 https://www.k4all.org/event/ai-oer/ 35 Workshop on Technologies for Open Educational Resources. Nantes, 16/10/2018 https://www.x5gon.org/event/tech-for-oer/ 36 X5-GON https://www.x5gon.org/ 37 Class’Code: https://pixees.fr/classcode-v2/
Hodgkinson-Williams, C., Arinto, P. B., Cartmill, T. & King, T. (2017). Factors influencing Open Educational
Practices and OER in the Global South: Meta-synthesis of the ROER4D project. In C. Hodgkinson-Williams &
P. B. Arinto (Eds.), Adoption and impact of OER in the Global South (pp. 27–67). Retrieved from
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1037088
Hodgkinson-Williams, C. & Trotter, H. (2018). A social justice framework for understanding open educational
resources and practices in the Global South, Journal of Learning for Development. Journal of Learning For
Development, 5(3), 204-224. Retrieved from http://www.jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/312
Down under perspectives
Belinda Tynan, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Education, RMIT University, (Australia) Carina Bossu (Open University , UK)
(Text written by the editors)
Some references
The authors have presented OERu38 international network of recognised partner institutions from five
continents – providing courses to students everywhere. They then gave some insights into current
developments in the Oceania continent.
- The Guide to Open Source Software for Australian Government Agencies39 - Government 2.040 - Adoption, use and management of open educational resources to enhance teaching and
learning in Australia 2010 – 2012: Office for Learning and Teaching41 - University Librarians Committee on Open Education Resources established 2018 - MOOCS- most universities have something - Business models- Open courseware leading to awards (eg. UQ, Curtin, Deakin EdX, FutureLearn) - Publishers - Open textbooks RMIT, USQ, UniCanberra & others- event just two weeks ago- (Rajiv) - OEP Special Interest Group, 1 year old, ASCILITE, 20 members
Effective open licensing policy and practice for Australian universities
The Open Education Licensing Project was a joint research and development project
undertaken by Swinburne University of Technology and the University of Tasmania in 2015/16.
In 2015 the project team surveyed and collected information from managers, educators and
information professionals in Australian universities about their understanding and experiences
with licensing issues for open online education. On the basis of information collected, in 2016